Teaching Philosophy

​Transformational Learning: Changing the way students think and act as marketers. ​Within the marketing discipline, our students have become comfortable and even dependent upon a traditional ‘assimilation of knowledge’ approach to learning, leading to a reliance upon engrained, generic solutions to marketing problems. However, this approach overlooks an important underlying skillset that students require to be successful in the marketing-based careers that we, as educators, are training them for: the ability to be adaptive, autonomous problem solvers. Thus, my approach to teaching focuses not only on affecting how my students approach a marketing problem, but how they think as marketers. My overarching teaching objective is to develop autonomous thinking through learning. Taking a rational, constructivist approach, I work to foster transformational learning, which occurs not through the mere rote memorization of concepts but through changes to students’ underlying meaning structures (Mezirow, 1991).

This type of learning comes about via the refinement of existing schemas, or the development of new ones – a change that requires a transformation of the student’s own perspective. Therefore, rather than simply instructing students what to do when faced with a particular marketing problem, I aim to change how they view and approach a problem from the outset. I then build in the tools needed to arrive at independently generated solutions that speak to the unique facets of stakeholders’ market needs.

Contact Scott directly (scott.connors@wsu.edu) for insights and concrete examples of how to incorporate transformational learning into your classroom.

Student Testimony​

"Scott Connors is one of the top 3 instructors I've had in my four years at WSU. He has a way of explaining the information that is clear and understandable; something I have struggled with in previous stats courses. Scott is knowledgeable about the information provided, and easy to ask for help when need be. – I have never in my college career had a singular course teach me so many real world skills and applicable information, and it is all due to Scott. Fantastic teacher."

​ "Amazing course; learned as much in this one class as I did the majority of my college career combined."

Paid special attention to small details especially when you would think an instructor might skip. He has a rare insight into what exactly what he conveys especially to the student, which I consider a valuable trait. If he offered more courses I would have no problem fighting to enrol.

"I honestly cannot think of any ways to improve this course, I wouldn't change a thing."

"He truly cares about asking what's expected of his students – he was always very fair in what he asked of us and was also extremely effective with communicating the importance of the material and how to understand it easily. Examples were given out whenever necessary and completed in class in order to ensure that every student who was actively participating in class was able to see how everything works." ​

Friendly and approachable. He's fair and always open to student's thoughts.